Breakfast Briefing: 5 things for PR pros to know on Tuesday morning

That errant coffee cup in Game of Thrones got Starbucks more than $1 million in free advertising. "The [public relations] value on this is well over $1 million in word of mouth and how people are actually engaging. Look at all of the memes that are being created," Stacy Jones, CEO of Hollywood Branded, told Yahoo News. Brands such as Steak-umm and Dictionary.com joined the coffee cup conversation on Twitter Monday, way before Starbucks did. HBO also waited until Monday afternoon to issue a statement on the matter.

Social media was abuzz with chatter about the Met Gala on Monday evening. The event got 5.8 million mentions across social channels. Brands that got the most mentions on social in relation to the event were Gucci with 49,759 mentions, followed by Instagram with 22,517 mentions, Twitter with 16,887 mentions and The Walt Disney Company with 10,246 mentions. And while Complex’s tweet about Lady Gaga’s four outfit changes certainly got attention, it was a tweet of a pigeon landing on the red carpet that really stole the show, with 152,000 likes and 45,000 retweets, according to social listening and analytics company Talkwalker.

The gender pay gap…and nuts? Planters brand Nut-rition angered male consumers in March when it made them pay the same price as women for 20% less nuts. The men’s "staggering" reactions were filmed with a hidden camera as part of the brand’s Equal Pay Day campaign. Masha Ievseieva, Nut-rition’s associate director of brand building, shared the stunt’s strategy, tactics and results with PRWeek.

Parody Twitter account wars. Twitter has suspended the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release parody account (@AOCPress) for being too similar to the real account of freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). In response, people who were fans of the account are protesting by trying to shutdown the Devin Nunes’ Cow (@DevinCow) parody account via mass reporting it to Twitter. #ProtectTheCow was trending early Monday, with Twitter users trying to save the account. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is suing Twitter for $250 million over the parody account.

REI has a new president and CEO: Eric Artz. Effective immediately, he replaces Jerry Stritzke and becomes the co-op's eighth CEO in its 81-year history. REI board chairman Steve Hooper wrote in a letter to staffers that Artz, who has worked at the company for seven years as CFO and COO, was the clear choice for CEO because he "believes in the purpose and impact of the co-op." Stritzke resigned after an outside investigation found he had "a personal and consensual relationship" with the leader of a partner organization in the outdoors space, according to MarketWatch.